


Vir Ex Machina

by AimeeLouWrites



Series: Cursed to Strife [9]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Art, Casually dealing with fatal wounds, Comedy, Crack Treated Seriously, Dimension Travel, Featuring: Genesis's Internal Screaming, Fix-It of the Time-Travel Fix-It, Gen, Includes art with sketched depictions of wounds, Listen cursed!Cloud is just wreaking havoc okay, Time Travel Fix-It, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29227995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AimeeLouWrites/pseuds/AimeeLouWrites
Summary: Cursed Cloud inadvertently and unthinkingly demolishes every single one of a time-traveling Cloud's plans while simultaneously freaking the hell out of Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal.
Relationships: Angeal Hewley & Genesis Rhapsodos & Sephiroth, Sephiroth & Cloud Strife
Series: Cursed to Strife [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016314
Comments: 91
Kudos: 417





	1. With All the Subtlety of A Sledgehammer

**Author's Note:**

> If you're coming here from Saving Subject C, all you need to know is that this starts right after tiny!Cloud goes the fuck to sleep in chapter 9 and Cursed!Cloud has been bouncing around dimensions dealing with nonsense for a good long while.
> 
> If you're here from Cursed to Strife, then as usual you don't really need to know what's going on in any given dimension.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud shows up and promptly blows tiny Cloud's plans right out of the goddamn water. The Firsts are bewildered beyond belief.

Sometimes, Cloud got lulled into a false sense of security in a new dimension. 

He had to make fairly quick assessments of any given world if he wanted to be able to rest, or search out food, or turn and run as fast as he fucking could to avoid spending a few hours in agony. Sometimes his assessments were wrong. It was a sad fact of being a fallible human man—he was going to be wrong sometimes. 

The current world, for instance, hadn’t thrown anything at all at him for nearly four hours and he’d relaxed completely. Then, out of _nowhere:_ the Commanders and the General in one cohesive unit, nearly killing him as he was caught completely off guard. The fact that all _three_ had been off their collective rockers was a new one. He wondered how they managed to keep a united front while batshit insane.

They beat him to hell and back, but he’d managed to turn the tables and kick their asses into the dirt just before the burning started. He might have grumbled a little about it happening _now_ as opposed to before he’d been smacked hither and yon by the triumvirate of crazy.

Or a lot. He may have grumbled a lot.

He slid into the nothing, and slid back out into a new world. His abdominal muscles spasmed immediately, the nausea impossible to suppress when there was so much blood in his stomach. And lungs. And abdominal cavity. He choked and coughed, splattering a mix of blood and stomach acid down the front of his shirt. “Gaia fuck,” he wheezed, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand.

A quiet noise from a few yards away caught his attention. He looked up and then tossed his head back with a childish groan. “Not _you_ again,” he complained to no one in particular. The least the universe could do was not give him the same problem twice in a row. Why couldn’t it have been evil AVALANCHE? He would have preferred running like hell from them rather than _another_ sword fight—especially when he was still massively bloodied up. Shit.

“I—what?” said Commander Rhapsodos, who was standing protectively in front of... _both_ Sephiroth and Commander Hewley? Huh. And when Cloud looked a little closer, squinting through his slightly hazy vision, he realized something _way_ weirder: Angeal was holding a tiny, unconscious Cloud in his arms.

“Huh,” said Cloud, coughing again. Black-speckled blood dripped to the floor, but that was their problem. “Is that…? What are you doing?”

“What are... _you..._ doing?” Rhapsodos countered in a stumbling voice, as if he wanted a better answer but was too caught off guard to come up with anything other than an elementary-school _‘no, you.’_

Cloud glanced at the coating of red on his glove and down the front of his brutalized shirt. “Uh, bleeding internally, I think.” He realized his sword was still out, scorched and covered in blood. “Hold on. Before this goes any further, have any of you done a genocide and/or are planning on doing a genocide?”

The three SOLDIERs stared at him in absolute, uncomprehending bafflement. Tiny Cloud slept on, cradled protectively in Commander Hewley’s arms, which was most likely a good sign. Unless they kidnapped him. That would be bad. Though, the kid did have... _wait a fucking second,_ the kid had Ribbon on his arm?

You know what, never mind. That was a dangerously time-travel train of thought and it would be dealt with later, if ever.

“We have not, are not, and will never commit genocide?” Commander Hewley finally offered, firm but bewildered.

“Fantastic.” Cloud glanced around long enough to identify the beach house in Costa Del Sol that Calamity Zack’s Mandatory Vacation Club had occupied. _Sure why not._ At least he was somewhere he knew where everything was. “Love to hear that. I’m borrowing your sink.”

“Uh—”

He didn’t actually wait for them to answer, staggering into the kitchen and over to the sink, where he leaned his hip hard into the counter so he wouldn’t fall over. He deftly flipped Tsurugi and set it on the counter, then unbuckled and shrugged off his harness. They were whispering furiously in the other room. Someone went upstairs as he peeled his shirts off, ‘borrowed’ a dishtowel, and started wiping enough of the blood away to assess his torso.

It was fucked. But he could manage before he keeled over and died.

Someone inhaled sharply behind him. He looked over his shoulder, and Commander Rhapsodos was there, Rapier out in a defensive position. The sword dropped even as he watched, tip dipping down as the good Commander witnessed wounds very clearly inflicted by his own weapon. Well, his own from another dimension, but he didn’t know that yet.

Cloud activated his _(long, long since)_ mastered Cure and sealed the one the Commander was staring at—a huge cauterized slash that had narrowly avoided severing his spine—first. Without the time, tools, and flexibility to debride the dead skin first, the healing itched like hell. If he’d had more energy to spare, he would have been squirming in place.

“What, Rhapsodos?” he asked, twisting one arm behind his back to find the exit wound Masamune had left when she’d impaled his gut. The angle was sharp—he found it just below his shoulder blades, knuckles immediately slick with blood as they skated over the tear. “You gonna stare or are you gonna attack me?” He fervently hoped attacking wasn’t in the books. He hated dying and the odds of him winning a second three-to-one in a row were virtually zero.

“I...”

Green flashed as Cloud carefully _(carefully)_ sealed up the impalement wound. One of his knees buckled hard into the cabinet, but that was exactly why he’d braced his hip in the first place, so that was fine. “If you’re just gonna stare at my naked torso, I should tell you I’m married.”

That seemed to jar Rhapsodos enough to re-focus. “Are you...Zack?” he asked, which was so startling that a surprised laugh burst from Cloud, making pain flare all over his body.

“Ow, fuck,” he said, bracing a hand across the wound from Hewley’s Buster sword that had nearly disembowled him. He spat a mouthful of blood into the sink and cast an incredulous look over his shoulder as Rhapsodos finally approached, heels clicking in a familiar staccato over the tile “Am I _Zack?_ Definitely not. The hell gave you that idea?”

Whatever vague, cautious curiosity had been on the Commander’s face vanished with his answer, hardening into a suspicious mask. “Then _who are you?”_ he asked, a steely edge to his voice.

“Cloud Strife, interdimensional punching bag extraordinaire,” Cloud answered, sealing up the wound over his gut. The dish towel was completely soaked through with crimson. He rinsed it and wrung it out with shaky hands.

Poor Rhapsodos immediately lost his steely determination to bewilderment. “Cloud...interdimensional...what?” 

“You seem to know _a_ Cloud, if that kid was who I think he was. I’m a different Cloud. From another dimension.” Did he enjoy fucking with them sometimes? Yes. He eyed the man, cleaning another, thankfully shallow, stab wound in his pectoral muscle. This one was cauterized, courtesy of Rapier, but it didn’t take much to scrub the dead bits off. The other Rhapsodos had said something about ‘ _burning out his heart.’_ Drama queens, all of them. “Don’t think about it too hard,” he advised.

But the Commander didn’t seem to have heard him. His eyes were on the wound Cloud promptly closed, wide with horrified recognition. “That...that looks like my…”

“Yep,” Cloud agreed. Then he startled, barely biting back a reflexive Thundaga as Rhapsodos snatched the towel up and started clearing the blood away in efficient strokes. “Hey, woah—” Cloud started.

“Shut up,” Rhapsodos snapped, grabbing one of Cloud’s arms and moving it out of the way. His breath became shallow as more and more of Cloud’s skin was revealed. It was the scars, Cloud realized. He was looking at the scars— _recognizing_ the scars. And then recognizing some of the fresh wounds from Masamune, Rapier, and the Buster.

 _“Fuck,”_ he said, standing at Cloud’s back now as he mopped up what Cloud couldn’t reach. “You...where did you get these?”

“I don’t have enough blood left to justify answering obvious questions.” His other knee chose that moment to buckle. His hands slammed onto the counter. _Well, shit. Time’s up,_ he thought, and summoned every last bit of his mana into a final, body-wide Cura. Rhapsodos made a noise Cloud couldn’t quite identify because he was too busy clinging to consciousness by a thread.

Despite all his best efforts, he lost muscle tone anyway and slid down the cabinets. He would have landed in an ungraceful heap had the Commander not caught him. _How generous,_ he thought hazily as he was manhandled over to a kitchen chair. A separate pair of hands semi-gently slapped his face. He managed to crack his eyes open and direct a _“mmhg?”_ at the vaguely Hewley-shaped blur. His vision refused to focus as it greyed around the edges. _Oops._

Cloud was pretty sure they were talking to him. Or maybe over him. He _probably_ wasn’t about to black out entirely, but higher cognitive function was out of the question while his enhanced healing did its job. If they murdered him in that time, ah, whatever. He just hoped they didn’t have the resources on hand to properly restrain him, or he would be _really_ annoyed when he came to.

Someone was still clearing away the blood. Then, to his vague surprise, they started casting Cures. An indeterminate amount of time later something warm was pressed into his chest, just over his oldest Masamune scar. It burst, suffusing him with heat and energy, and he roused back into full consciousness.

“You probably shouldn’t heal someone when they defy the laws of physics and pop up in your living room,” he said, like an idiot. Back to full functionality, if not full health, he quickly took in the kitchen. Hewley was behind him, holding him upright in the chair. Rhapsodos was leaning against the table, watching him shrewdly. And Sephiroth was now present but standing the farthest away, an oddly haunted and cornered look to his eye.

Actually, Sephiroth looked like absolute _shit,_ now that Cloud was paying attention. Huh.

“Probably not,” Hewley agreed mildly, and now the hands on his shoulders were meant for restraint rather than support. That was fine, though. As long as no one started stabbing, Cloud didn’t want to move anyway.

“Well, as long as we’re all clear on that,” Cloud said as he took a moment to assess himself. His legs were still banged up, but that was fine for now. The life-threatening wounds on his torso were all closed, and his skin had been completely cleaned for some reason. His ribs had gone from feeling broken to feeling bruised. One ankle felt like it had a minor break, but since he wasn’t standing he didn’t worry about it too much. He was as fine as he was going to get, and that meant moving on to the second most pressing task.

So he sighed, combing his bloodied bangs away from his face, and said, “alright, questions? I know you have questions. Everyone always has questions.”

Sephiroth blinked in surprise. Rhapsodos immediately repeated himself from earlier: “Where did you get those scars?”

Cloud couldn’t resist rolling his eyes a little. Seriously, there was no way he didn’t already know the answer. “Masamune, mostly, but also Rapier and the Buster, Tifa’s fists, Conformer, Venus Gospel, little bit of Death Penalty sprinkled in there for flavor…” he counted them off on his fingers as he spoke. “A lot of places. But you already knew that. You just don’t know _how.”_ He cocked a brow. “I told you, but for the sake of Hewley and Sephiroth, I’m Cloud Strife from a different dimension.”

“Cloud _Strife?”_ Genesis repeated, as Sephiroth and Hewley both said “different dimension?”

“Listen, I really can’t explain much better than that. I’ve been bouncing around dimensions for uh…” he frowned and scratched his jaw. “Not sure, actually. Upwards of a year or two, maybe? So, different dimensions, yes they exist, there are a lot of them, and I will be hurled back into the next one against my will in roughly seven hours.”

Hewley spoke. “How...how long have you had these scars?”

Cloud twisted around to shoot him a weird look, which he allowed. “Uh...got impaled—” they _all_ flinched at that, even Sephiroth, which was interesting— “by Masamune at sixteen the first time. Everything else kinda piled up after that.”

The most incredible set of expressions crossed the faces of the SOLDIERs as Cloud watched in absolute fascination. It was like they sort of wanted to be relieved, and then they thought about what he said and were horrified, but wanted to be relieved by something else and couldn’t quite figure out how to feel. It was one of the most entertaining things Cloud had witnessed since evil AVALANCHE had spotted him.

Evil AVALANCHE. EVILANCHE? Food for thought.

He decided to prod them, since they seemed to be a little stuck. “Why do you care?”

Genesis passed a hand over his eyes. “Wait. Just to be clear, you have had nothing to do with Sephiroth’s nightmares, correct?”

“Oooh, is that why he looks like shit?” Cloud asked, which caused the three SOLDIERs to turn wide eyes on him. He clicked his tongue. “Don’t give me that look, I probably know Sephiroth the best out of everyone in this room, including Sephiroth. But no, obviously I wasn’t involved in his nightmares considering I wasn’t even in this dimension until five minutes ago.” _You idiot_ went unsaid.

Sephiroth was looking at him with mixed confusion and hope. “Perhaps you can give us answers, then? I have been dreaming about...a grown version of Cloud killing me, over and over again. And the child has your sword, and your Ribbon. Whatever happened, did it simply happen later for you?”

Cloud made a face. Of course his initial suspicion had to be correct. Fucking time-travel. The real question was why the kid was...a kid. Or was he a kid? “Okay, weird question, but does your Cloud have a disturbing level of skill and knowledge about...well, everything?”

They exchanged a glance. “The first time I laid eyes on him he summoned Phoenix and burned down the ShinRa mansion in Nibelheim,” Genesis offered.

Cloud let his head thunk against the chair’s back and groaned, startling Hewley. “Fuuuuuck, yeah, no. That Cloud is from the future. Not sure why he’s tiny, because he should definitely be at least twenty-three to have Tsurugi, but…”

“That’s ridiculous,” Hewley said automatically, but he sounded uneasy.

“More ridiculous than dimensional travel?” He arched his brows at the man, still slouched against the back of the chair. “Okay, let me take a swing, then: Sephiroth’s dreams include a reactor. He’s talking like a crazy bastard when he’s stabbed by a faceless trooper. He stabs the trooper, trooper flings him into the mako using his own sword.”

He sat up to look, and the man in question had gone very, very pale. Well, good. Maybe he would think twice before genociding the world. “And possibly a second memory: he’s come back from the dead, stabs Cloud a few times, Cloud gets back up and kicks his ass using Omnislash.” He spread his hands, watching with interest as Genesis actually got up and went to Sephiroth’s side. The silver-haired man looked dangerously hazy—enough that Cloud felt a little bad for his delivery.

But only a little.

“I lived those memories,” he continued, tapping his temple. “Kid lived those memories, I would guess, unless there’s some other fuckery afoot. Considering you said he has my sword and Ribbon though, I doubt it.” He paused for a second, looking at Genesis thoughtfully. "Rhapsodos, were you recognizing Rapier's delicate touch or my scars?"

"Both," he said, face unreadable. One of his fists was clenched. "You share your oldest scars with the...smaller Cloud.”

Cloud pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Time-travel, came back with his gear, probably involuntary...hmm. Why would he have been small-ified...? He should be preteen even if his body got mashed into—“

Sephiroth made a noise, marched over to the sink that was still stained red with Cloud’s blood, and promptly threw up. Cloud’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. Hewley let go of him and went over to his friend, while Rhapsodos hovered on his other side, holding his ridiculous silver hair back. “I really,” Sephiroth choked out, “I really did those things. They’re real. _I did them.”_ He dry heaved. Angeal smoothed a hand down his back.

Cloud felt his eyes roll so far back in his head that it nearly hurt. _“Shiva,”_ he said, dragging a hand down his eyes. That was a mistake—he forgot his cheekbone was fractured and it hurt like a bitch. He groaned, half in pain and half in exasperation. “Why are you always so dramatic? No, moron, _you_ didn’t do those things any more than _I_ did them.” 

Angeal and Genesis both shot Cloud glares, but Sephiroth just turned an ear in his direction and went still. _Oh fine,_ Cloud thought, _I guess I have to do this._ “I have met countless versions of you and they’ve given me everything from yet another stab wound to uncomfortably passionate kisses—yes that really happened, don’t ask.” The latter part was directed to the startled and appalled look that all three of them sent him, probably because their first encounter with a Cloud had been a tiny kid one. 

Still, Sephiroth was actually focusing on him—that was good. So he continued: “Let me tell you, every single one of them made their own choices. Nothing is inevitable. Gaia, look, there’s even been worlds where _Cloud_ was the one who did ‘those things,’ and I would be the universe’s biggest moron if I wasted my time feeling guilty about that. They’re _not me._ He’s _not you._ Got it?”

“But...Cloud blamed me for it. He...he hates me,” Sephiroth said, oddly vulnerable. This time, Cloud felt an outright pang of pity for the guy. He must have felt as shit as he looked.

Cloud made a face at him anyway. “What, you think he’s some kind of logical paragon? Of course he hates you. I hated you when I started bouncing around. I tried to kill every single version of you I saw because I was angry and grieving the fact that I’d been stolen from my family and I blamed _you.”_

Genesis and Angeal shifted into more protective stances by Sephiroth’s side. Cloud rolled his eyes at them. “Not _any more,_ obviously. You should be impressed, considering I was halfway to death thirty seconds ago because the last world had all three of you as insane megalomaniacs to fend off.”

He got three wide-eyed looks in response and couldn’t resist the smirk that tugged at his lips. “Yeah, see? You gonna start hating them too, Sephiroth? Because believe me, they are just as capable of terrible things as you and I.”

“No,” Sephiroth said reflexively. “Of course not.”

“You gonna blame Cloud, then? He could go off the deep end too. In fact, knowing me, he’s probably been an absolute dick to you on purpose. And he doesn’t actually have the lack of age to blame for it, remember?”

“No! No, I—he’s...I couldn’t. Even if he...looked like you. I saw why he…”

Cloud clapped his hands. “Great! No guilt, get over yourself, let’s move on.” 

Angeal spoke as Genesis sort of gently shoved a very lost-looking Sephiroth over to a chair and made him sit. “Why would Cloud... _not_ tell us he’s older than he looks?”

Cloud cocked his head thoughtfully, blowing his bangs out of his eyes. “Eh, dunno. Would you have believed him?”

“I—eventually,” Angeal said, and meant it. “He really, really doesn’t act like a kid, now that I have more context.”

“He was genuinely terrified of us as SOLDIERs,” Genesis offered, standing behind Sephiroth with hands on his shoulders, grounding him.

“Ah!” Cloud snapped his fingers, enlightened. “Yeah, you said you saw him burning down the mansion? He blew up the reactor too, didn’t he.”

“Yes.”

“Can’t guarantee this is why, obviously, but...he probably thought you would hand him over to the Turks, or Science, or kill him outright if you knew he wasn’t a kid. I mean, if you saw _me_ blowing that hellhole to the Promise Land, you wouldn’t have done...whatever you did to get him here, would you?”

Genesis grimaced. “I would have fought you.”

“And lost,” Cloud agreed, ignoring the offended glare he got in response. Tiny Cloud totally would have won that fight and Genesis just had to deal with that fact. “So, obviously, he isn’t going to tell you _now_ when you’ve got him pinned. He’s gonna wait, and escape, and go blow shit up because you fatally underestimate him.”

“I—” Angeal put a hand to his head. “This is...a lot to process.”

“It sure is,” Cloud agreed. “But I’m anemic, tired, and I’ve got six-ish more hours before I go _poof,_ so why don’t you all...I dunno, go do some cathartic shit while I take a nap and raid your fridge?”

“Just inviting yourself to that, are you?” Genesis asked dryly.

Cloud shrugged. “When you’re cursed like I am you take what you can when you can.” He stood and stretched a little, feeling his fresh scars tug unpleasantly. “Oof,” he said, shamelessly ambling over to the fridge and starting to rummage around. _Oh, leftovers!_ He pulled out a container and opened it, inhaling deeply. Angeal’s food was always amazing, even reheated.

When he turned around to find a fork and eat it cold, too impatient to wait, all three of them were still there, staring. “Alright, what?” he asked with a sigh.

“You are a very strange man,” Sephiroth said at length, looking less hazy and more bewildered. “You just said counterparts of ours nearly killed you and now you’re salivating over Angeal’s leftovers?”

Cloud blinked at him slowly. “What’s your point.”

“...nevermind.”


	2. A Mystery Named Strife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Firsts are just trying to discuss the self-destructive behavior of their unexpected charge when a bleeding man appears in the middle of the living room. It really doesn't get any less baffling from there.

It wasn’t easy for any of them, understanding why a kid would be willing to go as far as breaking his own finger to keep awake. Genesis knew he was the last one to really accept what Angeal was trying to tell him, but even he was getting close to the point of understanding.

“You’re saying you believe his... delusions? About us, and about Sephiroth?” he said to Angeal’s explanation, incredulous.

“I’m saying  _ he _ believes it,” Angeal insisted, passed-out kid cradled protectively to his chest. “Not just intellectually. Instinctively. A child…look, children trust adults. It’s part of why we all hate anyone who hurts a kid. Because they were weak, and defenseless, and they trusted you. It’s a betrayal of instinct and nature. But that’s not what Cloud is acting like at all. He’s acting like he isn’t a child—he’s a war prisoner.”

Genesis felt his jaw clench at the thought. Angeal nodded grimly, seeing the understanding reflected in his expression.

“Cloud is behaving like a POW captured by his worst enemies. And real or not, it’s very, very real to him. Not in an ‘I made it up in my head’ way. A conditioned way. Someone trained this kid,  _ conditioned him, _ to think of us as enemies and Sephiroth in particular as the man who will torture him to death—“

Angeal didn’t get a chance to finish his explanation. Something fundamental changed in a split second. They froze in unison, breath catching. The hairs on the back of their necks stood upright. 

There was a fifth heartbeat in the room with them. 

The smell of freshly-spilled blood hit like a tidal wave.

Genesis whirled on instinct, putting himself in front of both Angeal and Sephiroth. There was a short blond man with a sword in hand in the middle of the living room, as if he’d managed the impossible and snuck in under the noses of three First Class SOLDIERs. They stared in shock as he hunched a little and threw up convulsively, soaking his chin and shirt in black-speckled blood. “Gaia fuck,” he said, eyes squeezed shut in pain as he shakily wiped a hand over his mouth.

Sephiroth choked audibly.

The man looked up at the noise, bleary-eyed and beat to hell, then threw his head and shoulders back and groaned like a whiny teenager, swaying onto his heels. “Not  _ you _ again,” he complained to the ceiling, which... _ what? _

“I—what?” said Genesis.

The man—who was  _ holding Cloud’s sword, _ how the  _ hell _ —looked at them with a concussed squint. “Huh,” he said, focusing with clear recognition on where Angeal was holding Cloud protectively to his chest. “Is that…? What are you doing?” He sounded perplexed, not accusatory.

Genesis scrambled to find his wits in the face of something so completely unexpected. “What are... _ you _ ...doing?” He countered, and barely refrained from smacking himself. So much for finding his wits.

The man glanced down at his red-stained glove and shirt. “Uh, bleeding internally, I think.” 

Genesis’s disbelief intensified. Who just  _ said _ something like that? No one was that casual if they knew they were actively dying!

But the man didn’t comment further, or ask for help, or even seem to really care about his hypothetical life-threatening internal damage. He just raised his sword and blinked at it as if he’d forgotten it was in his hand. “Hold on,” he said, returning his attention to them. “Before this goes any further, have any of you done a genocide and/or are planning on doing a genocide?”

_ Done...a genocide? What the fuck did that even mean? _ For the second time in his life since last night (when it rains it pours, he supposed), Genesis found himself incapable of speech. It was just too much. Too surreal.

Angeal stepped in after a painfully long delay that the rapidly bleeding-out man didn’t even seem to notice. “We have not, are not, and will never commit genocide?” he declared, baffled by the question but absolutely certain of his answer.

That seemed to satisfy the man well enough. He looked around blearily. “Fantastic. Love to hear that. I’m borrowing your sink.” He then staggered straight into the kitchen with absolute confidence, not bothering to wait for an actual response from them. Splatters of bright red marked his path as went.

Genesis whirled around, yanking the other two Firsts down into a huddle as soon as the man was out of sight. “Who the  _ fuck _ is that!” he hissed. “What is happening right now!”

“It’s the man,” Sephiroth said shakily, but his shakiness was only partly fear. The other part was deep, deep confusion. “Cloud. The older one. But...he looks even  _ older _ than in the dreams.” They all glanced at the small Cloud’s pinched, sleeping face. The soft, baby-fat roundness of his cheeks was a stark contrast against the hollowed lines of the strange man’s face, but the similarities in the overall structure were hard to ignore.

“He had the sword,” Angeal whispered. “Did he...steal it? Are there  _ more?” _ That one existed was incredible enough—two or more stretched credulity. And he’d clearly been wielding it recently.

The real question was very rapidly becoming  _ ‘are there more Clouds,’ _ but no one quite dared to articulate it.

Genesis growled. “You,” he said to Sephiroth, “check the storage room. You,” to Angeal, “put the kid to bed. I’ll handle him.” He jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. They exchanged nods and split apart.

When Genesis went to the kitchen with Rapier in hand, foolish enough to feel prepared for anything, the man had already divested himself of shirt and harness, bloody sword on the counter (as if they didn’t  _ prepare food there) _ , faucet on as he ran a dishtowel over his chest. 

But the attention Genesis spared to notice those things was very brief, quickly drawn to the ruined canvas of the man’s skin that screamed like a neon sign in comparison. Was, if he was honest, drawn to the enormous cauterized wound that spanned shoulder to hip—because he knew that kind of wound. He knew Rapier’s bite. Despite himself, he drew in a sharp breath at the impossible sight.

The man turned his head, glancing at Genesis over his shoulder as casually as if he was merely doing the dishes and heard a friend come in to speak with him. Light flashed as he used materia to seal the very wound Genesis was looking at. Genesis knew from experience that sealing it without a proper cleaning itched terribly, but the man barely even twitched.

“What, Rhapsodos?” he asked, twisting one arm up behind him to feel for a particular wound just under his shoulder blade. “You gonna stare or are you gonna attack me?”

There was so much to process. The casual confidence, despite Rapier being brandished at him. The mauled state of his...entire body, at a guess, though it was hard to tell with the dark fabric of his pants. The impossibility of his presence, and appearance, and gear. Genesis barely knew what to think, much less what to say. How much easier this all would have been if the damned stranger had just been  _ hostile! _

“I...”

The man’s materia flashed very brightly as he sealed up the wound he’d been seeking—much brighter than it should have for its apparent small size. Genesis’s mind automatically re-categorized it as some kind of stab wound. There was a loud, hollow  _ THUD _ as one of the man’s legs buckled hard into the cabinet. He barely even seemed to notice.

With a wry kind of teasing humor that was utterly unsuited to the situation, he said, “If you’re just gonna stare at my naked torso, I should tell you I’m married.”

It was such an out of place response that it actually managed to startle Genesis back into coherence. Several half-formed suspicions fought to be articulated, but it was when he laid eyes on a familiar pink Ribbon wound around the man’s arm  _ (exactly where Cloud had tied his) _ that he blurt out “are you...Zack?” Because it fit. Maybe haphazardly, but it fit and it was worth asking.

Except, the man immediately laughed, jerking in pain as he did so. “Ow, fuck,” he said, hunching over and spitting blood into the sink. Was that a no, or was it something else entirely? Genesis held Rapier to the side and approached as the man cast a positively incredulous look over his shoulder.

“Am I  _ Zack? _ Definitely not. The Hell gave you that idea?”

No, then. Genesis’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Then  _ who are you?” _ he asked with steel in his voice, wishing furiously that the man looked even a tiny bit apprehensive at having Genesis well within stabbing distance and obviously poised to kill.

If he’d expected a reasonable answer, he was sorely disappointed. “Cloud Strife,” the man said, which was bad enough, but then he went on to add “interdimensional punching bag extraordinaire.”

_ What. _ “Cloud...interdimensional...what?” Genesis was bewildered enough to nearly miss how... _ Cloud _ sealed up a long, deep sword wound over his lower stomach.

“You seem to know  _ a _ Cloud, if that kid was who I think he was. I’m a different Cloud. From another dimension.” Genesis was incapable of anything but staring as he slowly, slowly,  _ slowly _ processed the insane, bleeding-out man’s answer. Cloud—no, Strife,  _ Strife _ eyed him when he remained silent. “Don’t think about it too hard,” he advised.

Genesis’s eyes fell on another distinct wound over Strife’s heart as the man finished scrubbing the charred skin off it and sealed it with a spell. “That…” Genesis choked out, “that looks like my…” Once could be happenstance, but twice? He knew, deep in the pit of his stomach—those wounds had been caused by Rapier.

_ But how? _

“Yep,” Strife agreed casually, and that was the last straw. Genesis snapped forward and took the bloody towel, yanking one of the man’s arms out of the way and swiftly cleaning his skin so that the fresh marks and many,  _ many _ scars were clearly visible.

“Hey, woah—” Strife started, far less alarmed than he reasonably should have been, but Genesis just snapped “shut up” at him. Surprisingly, he did, offering no other objections as Genesis worked his way across and around Strife’s torso, mentally matching what he found to little Cloud’s scars.

It...wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy at all, and he could feel his breath become shallow as he picked out individual scars from beneath the accumulated masses of fresher scars above them. The most important scars—the ones from Masamune—they were all there. And worse, the  _ fresh _ wounds Strife had been tending too...they were all familiar to Genesis, who saw the evidence not only of Masamune’s bite, but of his own Rapier and Angeal’s Buster both.

_ “Fuck,” _ he choked out, standing at Strife’s back. “You...where did you get these?”  _ Where? _ They hadn’t done it, couldn’t have, because the wounds were too fresh. Were there  _ duplicates _ of them? Was little Cloud a duplicate of Strife?  _ What the hell was going on? _

“I don’t have enough blood left to justify answering obvious questions,” Strife answered, sounding woozy. His other knee buckled a split second later and he jerked forward, catching himself on his palms against the counter. Genesis barely even had time to react before the man took a SOLDIER’s last-ditch action to keep himself alive and expended what remained of his waning mana on a final, body-spanning Cura.

Genesis cursed creatively as Strife collapsed immediately after, catching the man by the arms so that he wouldn’t topple to the floor in a bloody heap. Angeal came into the kitchen just in time to help, pulling a chair out from the table as Genesis manhandled the semi-conscious man over to it and sat him down.

“Gods-damned idiot,” Genesis muttered, holding Strife upright as Angeal tried to rouse the man by slapping his face. “Strife? Strife, can you hear me?”

Strife’s eyes cracked open, unfocused, but they only got a vague, confused groan when Angeal tried asking as well. His eyes shut again shortly after, head lolling back.

Genesis sighed sharply through his nose. “Oh,  _ fine. _ Switch with me, Angeal.” Angeal cast him a narrow-eyed look in response, but moved to take his place keeping the man upright anyway. Genesis retrieved a fresh towel, wet it, and continued cleaning away the blood. “Look. He has the same scars as the kid, plus more on top.” He pointed them out as he went “I don’t know how. I...you heard him earlier, I assume. He’s not Zack. Do you think…” he paused, towel just beneath the old, silvery impalement scar in the center of the man’s chest. “Angeal, do you think they’ve managed to...make copies of us?”

“You think Cloud might be a clone of Strife?” Angeal asked, catching on immediately, bless him. Genesis wasn’t sure he had the spare brain power to clearly articulate himself at the moment.

“Maybe. I don’t...there are still a lot of things that don’t add up, but…”

Angeal shook his head. “He was being very blunt with you earlier. Let’s just get him conscious again and ask. Speculating isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

Genesis exhaled sharply. “Right,” he agreed. Sephiroth was coming down the stairs to join them. There really was no more efficient way of getting answers than asking. “Right.”

It took a bit of work from all of them, but they managed to get Strife back to full consciousness. He really had done quite an expert job on the injuries he’d healed himself, clearly an old hand at mending battle wounds on himself. They didn’t fix  _ everything, _ of course—that would have been a tactical blunder—but they fixed enough and gave him the boost he needed to regain awareness.

“You probably shouldn’t heal someone when they defy the laws of physics and pop up in your living room,” Strife said immediately, sitting upright and taking in the kitchen with sharp and experienced eyes. His attention lingered on Sephiroth in particular, a curious slant to his mouth.

Genesis couldn’t find even a hint of unease in Strife’s body language, which was so utterly infuriating that it bordered dangerously on awe.

Angeal’s hands had shifted, just subtly, but now he was clearly restraining Strife rather than simply holding him upright. “Probably not,” he said with deceptively mild agreement.

Strife remained unperturbed. “Well, as long as we’re all clear on that.” He paused, making a quick succession of minor shifts to his limbs that told Genesis he was rapidly assessing what had and hadn’t been healed. It was an impressively short pause before he looked back up and combed his hair out of his face. “Alright, questions? I know you have questions. Everyone always has questions.”

_ Everyone? _ What did that mean? But Genesis’s thoughts about his odd phrasing took a back seat to the more important question. “Where did you get those scars?” he demanded.

Strife actually  _ rolled his eyes _ , then started listing off names, counting on his fingers as he went: “Masamune, mostly, but also Rapier and the Buster, Tifa’s fists, Conformer, Venus Gospel, little bit of Death Penalty sprinkled in there for flavor…A lot of places. But you already knew that. You just don’t know how.” He arched a brow at Genesis. “I told you, but for the sake of Hewley and Sephiroth, I’m Cloud Strife from a different dimension.”

“Cloud  _ Strife?” _ Genesis double-checked. Seph and Angeal also spoke at the same time, though their question was, “different dimension?”

“Listen, I really can’t explain much better than that,” Strife said. “I’ve been bouncing around dimensions for uh…” He slowly frowned, eyes turning up in thought. “Not sure, actually. Upwards of a year or two, maybe? So, different dimensions, yes they exist, there are a lot of them, and I will be hurled back into the next one against my will in roughly seven hours.”

Well  _ that _ seemed oddly specific.

“How...how long have you had these scars?” Angeal asked slowly. Genesis knew exactly what he was thinking: if this was an alternate, grown version of Cloud, then maybe he could shed light on the things the kid refused to tell them.

Strife’s expression said that he thought it a very odd question to ask, but he answered anyway. “Uh...got impaled by Masamune at sixteen the first time. Everything else kinda piled up after that.”

Sixteen. That was far better than one or two years of age, but—sixteen. Just  _ sixteen. _ Not even an adult yet. And that was just ‘the first time.’ Genesis could feel that things were getting lost in the deluge of information. This was just...too much. He felt stuck, thoughts whirling in loops.

Then Strife spoke again— _ how long had Genesis been lost in his own head? _ —asking, “why do you care?”

Genesis put a hand over his eyes and tried to gather his scattered thoughts. “Wait,” he said. “Just to be clear, you have had nothing to do with Sephiroth’s nightmares, correct?”

The strange, strange man immediately floored him by asking “Oooh, is that why he looks like shit?” Genesis gaped at him unattractively. How in the  _ hell _ did he know Sephiroth well enough to see that? It had taken him and Angeal  _ years _ to learn how to read Sepiroth!

Strife clicked his tongue impatiently at their shock. “Don’t give me that look, I probably know Sephiroth the best out of everyone in this room, including Sephiroth. But no, obviously I wasn’t involved in his nightmares considering I wasn’t even in this dimension until five minutes ago.”

Sepiroth spoke up for the first time. “Perhaps you can give us answers, then? I have been dreaming about...a grown version of Cloud killing me, over and over again. And the child has your sword, and your Ribbon. Whatever happened, did it simply happen later for you?”

Relief filled Genesis’s chest like a breath of fresh air. If Sephiroth was asking questions, then he was handling things relatively well.

Strife’s expression contorted strangely. “Okay, weird question, but does your Cloud have a disturbing level of skill and knowledge about...well, everything?”

The three SOLDIERs exchanged a look. That was...a very succinct way of summarizing the issue. Genesis nodded slowly and said, “The first time I laid eyes on him he summoned Phoenix and burned down the ShinRa mansion in Nibelheim.”

Angeal jolted as Strife tossed his head back with an audible THUNK and groaned like a teenager being asked to take out the trash. “Fuuuuuuck,” he whined, “yeah, no. That Cloud is from the future. Not sure why he’s tiny, because he should definitely be at least twenty-three to have Tsurugi, but…”

The words fell like with the grace of a sledgehammer across Genesis’s ears. He heard, distantly, as Angeal said “that’s ridiculous,” but the words were mostly lost beneath the loop of  _ ‘from the future.’ _

_ From the future. _

_ That Cloud is from the future. _

What the FUCK did that mean?

“More ridiculous than dimensional travel?” Strife said, and Genesis forced himself to focus with Herculean effort. “Okay, let me take a swing, then: Sephiroth’s dreams include a reactor. He’s talking like a crazy bastard when he’s stabbed by a faceless trooper. He stabs the trooper, trooper flings him into the mako using his own sword.” Sephiroth was white as a sheet, but Strife barely paused as he sat up. “And possibly a second memory: he’s come back from the dead, stabs Cloud a few times, Cloud gets back up and kicks his ass using Omnislash.”

That was too much. Genesis got up and moved to Sephiroth’s side. His friend looked raw yet hazy, distancing himself—or being  _ forced _ to distance himself—from the horror of Strife’s words. From memories that...weren’t his. Memories that belonged to someone else entirely.

Strife must have been able to see the toll his words were taking, but he didn’t stop. Whether that was mercy, or malice, or sheer apathy, Genesis couldn’t even begin to guess. “I lived those memories,” the blond said, tapping a finger against his temple. “Kid lived those memories, I would guess, unless there’s some other fuckery afoot. Considering you said he has my sword and Ribbon though, I doubt it. Rhapsodos, were you recognizing Rapier's delicate touch or my scars?" 

The question pulled Genesis from his dizzying contemplation about what ‘other fuckery’ could  _ possibly _ have been added to dimension and—oh yes—FUCKING TIME TRAVEL. He managed to keep his expression even, but one fist was clenched so tightly that it ached. “Both. You share your oldest scars with the...smaller Cloud.”

Strife looked thoughtful. “Time-travel, came back with his gear, probably involuntary...hmm. Why would he have been small-ified...? He should be preteen even if his body got mashed into—“

Sephiroth finally hit his limit, pulling away from Genesis’s hand to go vomit into the sink. Genesis followed, of course, keeping Seph’s silver hair from falling into the basin that...also still had Strife’s blood splattered across it. He grimaced, holding the mass of hair a little higher. Disgusting.

Sephiroth managed to choke out words eyes squeezed shut and back bowed. “I really…I really did those things. They’re real.  _ I did them.” _ He heaved again, but there was nothing left in his stomach. Angeal, standing opposite Genesis, ran one hand soothingly up and down Seph’s back.

_ “Shiva,” _ Strife said in exasperation, and groaned like a teenager for the third time that day. “Why are you always so dramatic? No, moron,  _ you _ didn’t do those things any more than I did them.”

Genesis turned a livid glare on Strife. He really thought  _ this _ was the appropriate way to deal with the situation? But before he had a chance to snap back in defense of Seph, Strife continued.

“I have met countless versions of you and they’ve given me everything from yet another stab wound to uncomfortably passionate kisses—yes that really happened, don’t ask,” he said, the last part tacked on when all three of them balked simultaneously.  _ Kisses—?! _ Why the  _ hell…? _ But Sephiroth’s head was raised, and he’d been distracted from self-flagellation. Loathe though Genesis was to think it, perhaps Strife had a method to his madness.

Strife was intent on Sephiroth, mako-bright eyes unimpressed, but not unkind. “Let me tell you, every single one of them made their own choices. Nothing is inevitable. Gaia, look, there’s even been worlds where  _ Cloud _ was the one who did ‘those things,’ and I would be the universe’s biggest moron if I wasted my time feeling guilty about that. They’re  _ not me. _ He’s  _ not you.” _ Strife sat back in the chair and crossed his arms over his bare chest, quirking an eyebrow. “Got it?”

Sephiroth offered one last feeble objection. “But...Cloud blamed me for it. He...he hates me.” 

Genesis squeezed his arm in silent comfort.

Unsurprisingly, Strife made a face at his words. “What, you think he’s some kind of logical paragon? Of course he hates you. I hated you when I started bouncing around. I tried to kill every single version of you I saw because I was angry and grieving the fact that I’d been stolen from my family and I blamed  _ you.” _

Genesis and Angeal both tensed instinctively, which earned another eye-roll from Strife. “Not  _ anymore, _ obviously. You should be impressed, considering I was halfway to death thirty seconds ago because the last world had all three of you as insane megalomaniacs to fend off.”

That made sense, considering how fresh his wounds had been, but Genesis still couldn’t help his immediate reaction of ‘ _ what the fuck.’ _ How could anyone handle things like that and then just...talk casually to identical people the next world over? How was Strife not a  _ gibbering loon _ from dealing with all of this?

Strife just smirked at their reaction to his words. “Yeah, see? You gonna start hating them too, Sephiroth? Because believe me, they are just as capable of terrible things as you and I.”

“No,” Sephiroth said reflexively, which made Genesis soften in ways he’d never,  _ ever, _ admit out loud. “Of course not.”

“You gonna blame Cloud, then? He could go off the deep end too. In fact, knowing me, he’s probably been an absolute dick to you on purpose. And he doesn’t actually have the lack of age to blame for it, remember?”

“No! No, I—he’s...I couldn’t. Even if he...looked like you. I saw why he…” Seph put a hand to his head. Genesis squeezed his arm again.

Strife clapped his hands, grinning at them. “Great! No guilt, get over yourself, let’s move on.”

And since Seph seemed to have been subdued for the moment, Genesis pushed him insistently in the direction of a chair and made him sit. Who knew what their insane visitor was going to say next? It was in everyone’s best interest that Seph sat the hell down.

Angeal asked one of the many jumbled questions Genesis had floating around in his head. “Why would Cloud... not tell us he’s older than he looks?” It was a pressing question, if only because Cloud being honest would have solved a great many of the conflicts they’d had over the past thirty-six hours or so. Not all of them, but...a lot.

“Eh, dunno,” Strife said, blowing his bangs out of his eyes. “Would you have believed him?”

“I—eventually,” Angeal said. Genesis nodded in agreement. “He really, really doesn’t act like a kid, now that I have more context.”

“He was genuinely terrified of us as SOLDIERs,” Genesis offered. His raw terror had to be significant in some way, given that Strife didn’t fear them  _ at all, _ even when actively dying and basically helpless.

Strife suddenly looked enlightened. He snapped his fingers and pointed to Genesis. “Ah! Yeah, you said you saw him burning down the mansion? He blew up the reactor too, didn’t he.”

“Yes,” Genesis confirmed, wondering distantly why the fresh hell that would be a common enough occurrence for Strife to immediately jump to the correct conclusion.

“Can’t guarantee this is why, obviously, but...he probably thought you would hand him over to the Turks, or Science, or kill him outright if you knew he wasn’t a kid. I mean, if you saw me blowing that hellhole to the Promise Land, you wouldn’t have done...whatever you did to get him here, would you?”

_ There _ was an unpleasant thought, when put in the context of someone who Genesis had...at least  _ assumed _ to be a small child. He felt a grimace pull at his lips. “I would have fought you,” he admitted.

“And lost,” Strife said confidently, which made Genesis bristle on pure reflex. Who cared if the man had apparently lived through fighting all three of them at once in a different world, who was he to be that arrogant! But Strife didn’t even blink at Genesis’s glare, continuing on, “So, obviously, he isn’t going to tell you now when you’ve got him pinned. He’s gonna wait, and escape, and go blow shit up because you fatally underestimate him.”

Angeal put a hand to his head, a strained expression pulling at his face. “I—This is...a lot to process.”

_ Understatement of the century, my friend, _ Genesis thought wryly. Sephiroth shifted under his hands.

“It sure is,” Strife agreed. “But I’m anemic, tired, and I’ve got six-ish more hours before I go poof, so why don’t you all…” he waved a finger. “I dunno, go do some cathartic shit while I take a nap and raid your fridge?”

Absolutely shameless. “Just inviting yourself to that, are you?” Genesis asked him dryly.

Strife just shrugged, unbothered. “When you’re cursed like I am you take what you can when you can.” He stood as Genesis blinked and wondered about what exactly he meant by ‘cursed,’ stretching briefly before he went over to the fridge and started rummaging around. The three Firsts watched in mild disbelief. It wasn’t even like the man was adapting well to new circumstances—he was behaving as if there was  _ nothing to adapt to. _

The feeling of surreality deepened when he made a little noise of delight upon discovering Angeal’s leftovers, popping the lid open and inhaling like it was the best thing he’d smelled in months. He turned around, and his pleased expression shifted into something exasperated when he saw that they were watching him intently. “Alright, what?”

Where to even  _ start _ with that question? Sephiroth was the first to speak. “You are a very strange man. You just said counterparts of ours nearly killed you and now you’re salivating over Angeal’s leftovers?”

Strife’s expression said he didn’t understand why Sephiroth was stating the obvious. “What’s your point.”

Seph opened his mouth. Shut it. Gave up—wisely, in Genesis’s opinion. “Nevermind.”

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 2 to include the Firsts' perspective and Cloud meeting Cloud because why not?


End file.
